Is That Your National Anthem or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Freaky--seems Yes on 8 (AKA Let's Constitutionalize Hate) has bought up ads on every website and radio station in the world today. Driving into work, hoping to find out what was going on with the gunman on the highway overpass, our local "Progressive Talk Radio" station aired a Yes on 8 ad. Checked stuff, as always every morning, on Talking Points Memo--another ad.

And now, weirdest of all, looking up the reviews for Shortbus, which Amy and I finally watched (and enjoyed) last night, there's a Yes on 8 ad on the Salon.com page.

Shortbus, a film that Adrew O'Hehir calls "a sad, sweet, openhearted work, a New York tragicomedy of manners that resembles what Woody Allen might make if he were 35 years younger and interested in the pansexual orgy scene."

Shortbus, about which the Village Voice writes: "In what should be the movie's most outrageous scene, Jamie, James, and their boy toy Ceth (Jay Brannan) spontaneously erupt into 'The Star-Spangled Banner' during a convoluted three-way, using each other as human bullhorns. It sounds like a sneering provocation. But in performance, it comes off unironically jubilant, even patriotic—is this a great country or what? As long as one man remains free to sing the national anthem into another man's asshole, the terrorists haven't won."

I have a feeling they're not hitting their target audience here.

Say Yes to Shortbus, no to Prop 8!

Get Me to the Polling Place on Time

It's hard to know where to start, as I've been writing on this blog about gay marriage since the beginning and took on that nasty misdirection--"we can't have gay marriage to save the children"--just two weeks ago. I can't think of one reason why it shouldn't be permitted, and I've heard all the arguments--how could I not? I live in California and can't avoid the numerous ads paid for by the Mormons. In fact, I'm hoping to start a fund to run ads in Salt Lake City about how racist, sexist religions based on one whack job's ideas are a joke, and then insist I'm just exercising my First Amendment rights. They better not silence me.

But even if I did that, I wouldn't be doing something nearly as terrible as what they're up to in California. For denying gays and lesbians the right to marriage is denying them the rights of full legal citizenship. It's saying a religious belief trumps a human right. It's saying a religious belief is the basis of law. Of course it's also saying people create gods in their own images, for if there was a supreme being, would he/she offer hate as the way to live?

Back in November 2006 I wrote this about Jon Stewart's stand-up routine at UCSB:

He also did an extended segment on gay marriage, truly puzzled why it bugs (no, not buggers) folks so much. He joked about how Leviticus tosses about abominations like ums and uhs, stressing it calls shellfish an abomination, too. Then he said, "How come you never see one of those anti-gay protesters with a sign, 'Death to Fags...and Scallops'?" Later, in just one of the off-color moments he wondered, "What can bother them so much about gays? Does someone hear the distant sound of one man's balls slapping into another man's ass--wap, wap, wap, wap--and then say, 'Hey, I'm trying to work here?'"

Indeed, it's hard to understand why there's such a freak-out. This notion that gay marriage ruins marriage for heterosexuals in particular seems supsect; to quote Stewart one more time, "Divorce doesn't happen because 50% of marriages end in gayness."

Here's one man's take, unburdened by religion but true to a sense that the world needs to be taken care of and that perhaps--and yes, so often cynical, flippant me is writing this--perhaps all we need to be to is be bit nicer to each other. (Egad, he's resorting to the "be nice" card. Can a job at Hallmark be far behind?) I love my wife more than I can say and that bond is stronger since we had the opportunity to commit ourselves--legally and in front of our friends and family--to being one. I cherish that, and the idea of denying anyone else that right seems brutally wrong.

If you live in California I urge you to vote No on Proposition 8.